Both Bad and Good in Bush's Climate Change Speech

About the Author

President George W. Bush, in a speech delivered at the White
House on Wednesday, April 16, suggested that he will support
federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions. This appears to be a
reversal after seven years of opposition to mandatory controls on
energy in the name of fighting climate change. Indeed, some worried
that the speech would announce a final-year capitulation on the
issue.

However, the President was careful to endorse several important
principles that may make this much less of a policy shift than it
seems. For example, he will not support any measures that hurt the
American economy or that fail also to include other major nations
like China. The President should firmly stick to these
principles.

The Background

A few events may have prompted the President's speech. A Major
Economies Meeting is underway in Paris. This series of meetings was
launched by the President in September 2007 to bring together the
leaders of the nations that have the world's largest economies,
with the ultimate goal of achieving global participation in any
greenhouse gas emissions plan. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the
climate change treaty that exempts developing nations, this process
seeks, according to the President, "meaningful participation of
every major economy and gives no one a free ride."

Another prompt may have been Senate Bill 2191, the America's
Climate Security Act, sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT)
and John Warner (R-VA). This is a carbon cap-and-trade bill with
stringent targets, and it will probably be debated in June. Several
studies, including a forthcoming Heritage Foundation analysis,
predict very serious economic consequences from this bill,
including potential job losses well into the millions, higher
energy prices, and possible annual costs per household in the
thousands of dollars.

Finally, the President is facing several tough regulatory
decisions related to climate change. This includes a 2007 Supreme
Court decision that requires the Environmental Protection Agency to
reconsider its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from
motor vehicles[1] and litigation to force the Department of
the Interior to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species
Act on the grounds that climate change is altering its habitat.[2] The
states and organizations pushing these regulatory challenges are
doing so largely to force Washington's hand on the issue.

The President's Speech

In his remarks, the President endorsed mandatory emissions
limits, though the targets are far less stringent than those in S.
2191. He wants to "slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of
our greenhouse gas emissions," with the "stop" goal to be achieved
by 2025. The President did not detail the additional measures he
would support to meet this goal. Though a step in the wrong
direction, this is far less drastic than some had feared. He
neither pushed tougher targets nor explicitly endorsed the
cap-and-trade approach.

The largest portion of the President's speech spelled out in
general terms the right and wrong ways to go about climate policy.
He prominently mentioned the Kyoto Protocol as an example of the
latter and cited the 1997 Byrd-Hagel Senate resolution, which was
passed 95 to 0, and opposed any such treaty that either hurt the
U.S. economy or failed to engage major developing nations--the
reasons why Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush never sought
U.S. ratification of the treaty.

The President voiced similar economic and global-participation
concerns in his speech. On the economic impacts of climate
measures, he said:

The wrong way is to raise taxes, duplicate mandates, or demand
sudden and drastic emissions cuts that have no chance of being
realized and every chance of hurting our economy. The right way is
to set realistic goals for reducing emissions consistent with
advances in technology, while increasing our energy security and
ensuring our economy can continue to prosper and grow.

On the need for truly global participation in any climate-change
regime, he added:

The wrong way is to unilaterally impose regulatory costs that
put American businesses at a disadvantage with their competitors
abroad[,] which would simply drive American jobs overseas and
increase emissions there. The right way is to ensure that all major
economies are bound to take action and to work cooperatively with
our partners for a fair and effective international climate
agreement.

Although he did not explicitly mention S. 2191, the President
specified with respect to it what the Byrd-Hagel resolution
specified with respect to Kyoto: He laid out the conditions without
which any such measure will be opposed.

The President's speech does present several problems, however.
For example, the President touted his massive ethanol mandate as a
success, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary--failure to
reduce pump prices and higher food costs with both U.S. and
worldwide implications.[3] If the President thinks this is an
experience worth repeating, then there is need for constant
vigilance in the months ahead. His talk of market-based solutions
and the need to develop new technologies was welcome, but it was
contradicted by his endorsement of government subsidies. Finally,
his discussion of the regulatory morass, while very much on the
mark, failed to spell out any solutions.

Conclusion

Embracing specific emissions targets was an unnecessary step
that shifts the climate change debate in the wrong direction.
Nonetheless, the President set out correct principles for
addressing the issue, especially with respect to the American
economy and the need for global participation. Overall, the speech
was more important for what the President said he would not support
than for what he said he would support.

Ben Lieberman is Senior
Policy Analyst for Energy and the Environment in the Thomas A. Roe
Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage
Foundation.